Sunday, August 30, 2015

ES YM NQ TS TradePlan Equity Chart Review - Friday August 28, 2015

ES TS TradePlan E-mini S&P-500 Chart Review - Friday Aug 28, 2015

YM TS TradePlan E-mini Dow Chart Review - Friday Aug 28, 2015

NQ TS TradePlan NASDAQ 100 Chart Review - Friday Aug 28, 2015

Charts shown with the TS TradePlan Indicator for NinjaTrader

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

ES TS TradePlan E-mini S&P-500 Chart Review - Tuesday August 25, 2015

ES TS TradePlan E-mini S&P-500 Chart Review - Tuesday August 25, 2015

Gold Short Trade

GC TS TradePlan Gold Chart Review - Monday August 24, 2015

The Gold Short

Some notes about the trade:


With equity markets experiencing high volatility (the S&P-500 down 150 points in 3 days) you would think that gold would be acting as more of a "flight to safety."

However she wasn't really reacting at all. She managed to find resistance at Range Short overnight and wasn't exactly looking like she wanted to make another surge. We noted the weakness/lack of strength on StockTwits and immediately started stalking short in the private client feed. 

I noted on the StockTwits and Twitter that it's not everyday you can trade gold and get less volatility than equity! Kind of funny that with equity futures halting on Tuesday Gold was actually the tamer instrument to trade. It is not often we get that :)

Charts shown with the TS TradePlan Indicator for NinjaTrader

Saturday, August 22, 2015

5 Lessons From Friday's Market

YM TS TradePlan E-mini Dow Chart Review - Friday August 21, 2015

 A closer look at Friday's YM chart. I used 30 second candles in the 2 charts below so you can better see the price-action.


1 Short Trade #1 - #4 and 1 Long Trade #5 - #6


1 Momentum Short Trade #1 - #5


What can we learn from this?

It took a while to copy/past the private client feed above. The reason I did is because I think there are a few lessons to be had that could be beneficial to the trading community. I really hope they help someone reading this! 

1. The trades you see are the only YM trades we took as we were focused on CL and GC earlier in the session. Notice the first one wasn't until 9 AM PST. This is 2.5 hours after the U.S cash open. Lesson # 1 "Opportunity is always present." We just have to look for it.

2. The next lesson is something I have been harping on lately, but it is so important. Before I enter a trade, heck before I even start stalking a trade, I want to know if I am going to stalk long or short so one of the first questions I ask myself is "what is the market trying to accomplish." To me this means context, and to understand what it is "trying to accomplish" I look back in time to "what it has done." Anyway Friday at 9 AM PST I determined the context to be "market has broken under Range Long and is trying for Highest Odds Long FTD target." Hence I wanted to short bounces. There, I had direction (knowing I wanted to short) now needed something to lean against. Used 16739 (not a TS # but an Exhaustion Level from the private client feed) and leaned against that, using Highest Odds Long FTD at 16597 TS # as the main target. So lesson # 2 is "Get your target first." Oftentimes the target of a short trade is a Long Execution/Target Zone, as in the example above. 

3. Lesson # 3 is "Counter-trend trades are okay." We just need to keep context in focus. In the long trade we took keyed to Highest Odds Long FTD we scaled to hedge risk then ratcheted up open risk quickly as the trade (a long) was counter-trend to the dominant direction of the market at the time (short). Still BSO (best scale out) was + 99 ticks.

4. On trade # 3 the best entry was when we scaled the last of our long at 16994. High tick of that rotation was 16698 and it never ticked that high again for the rest of the session. We scaled last long at 11:01 AM PST and you can see at 11:18 AM PST I noted "may have missed the turn down." At 11:20 took a break, refreshed, then came back and stalked the last trade of the day. It ended up being a momo short for continuation down to Friday's Extreme Long (still the likely target for this Sunday - Monday). Lesson # 4 is "It's okay to take a break." When it became apparent we might have missed the turn down, and being unsure if we actually had, instead of stalking something again right away — I walked away. Took a little break (23 min) came back refreshed and with a fresh perspective (and 23 min more of price action to gain context from) and feeling refreshed, better prepared and more confident to stalk something new.

5. The last trade we took was a momentum down at 16561. I might add nearly 150 ticks below where we scaled the last of our long at 16694. I rarely trade momo (and especially in equity) and my thoughts on momo are contained in the notes in the chart above, but lesson # 5 is "Adapt to the current market context." While I rarely take momentum entries there is a time and a place and being able to identify those times and places and take advantage of them is what separates the pros from the novices. If you want to up your game you must learn how to trade all types of markets. It wasn't easy for me to adapt momentum into my strategy, but I did it. 

Hopefully this post helps! What other lessons can you learn from this post? What lessons did you learn in your own trading of Friday's markets? Share them in the comments below, or privately via email.


Thursday, August 20, 2015

Using the Execution/Target Zones as Trade Targets

ES TS TradePlan E-mini S&P-500 Chart Review - Thursday August 20, 2015

Some Thoughts on Using the Execution/Target Zones as Trade Targets

20 points from the last test of Highest odds Long to Extreme Long in the last 30 min of today's trade. 

Can you short a Long Execution/Target Zone on test from below and target the next lower Zone? 

Can you long a Short Execution/Target Zone on test from above and target the next higher Zone?

If you can't, read this post, and this post, and this post, and drill this concept into your head. 

Charts shown with the TS TradePlan Indicator for NinjaTrader

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

GC TS TradePlan Gold Chart Review - Wednesday August 19, 2015

GC TS TradePlan Gold Chart Review - Wednesday August 19, 2015

Showing the move through Range Short and up to Highest Odds Short FTU target. Notice the last test at bottom of Range Short on test from below before we finally go (see last chart).

Why We Shorted Oil When We Only Traded At The Day's Long Execution/Target Zones

CL TS TradePlan Oil Chart Review - Wednesday August 19, 2015

I'll say this over and over again. If you are looking for buy on green and sell on red .. keep looking. Those systems exist .. but they don't work. What we do is offer precise support and resistance levels. You have to understand how to trade around them. If you get the idea of using S/R levels as areas to do business and go into the day already aware of specific price levels — then you will likely benefit from our service. 


So today when we came in we took a look at the overnight price action during Europe trade and it was obvious that all night we had been finding support at Range Long. 

Knowing that if we could break under Range Long and LIS and hold, and with LIS being under day's RL which is rare, that the probable target was all the way down at day's Highest Odds Long FTD. So we got short on that pop up to 42.82 for cost basis over 42.76 TS # at top of Range Long, scaled to hedge risk, and waited for oil inventories to inject volatility. 

 Oil inventories came outAnd that is what happened next. Break and hold of Range Long / LIS and down to Highest Odds Long FTD target. 

Point? Green doesn't mean buy. Red doesn't mean sell. We took a huge short today based on a likely break of Range Long using Highest Odds Long as target. Shorting a green zone break to the next green zone! I harp on this all the time but they are called Execution/Target Zones, not just Execution Zones, and for a reason. Are you letting your trades run to their true targets? 

Using the zones = $$ but context and risk management is key. What area are you leaning on to keep your risk small? Be a smart trader. Trade smart and trade well. - TraderSmarts

Charts shown with the TS TradePlan Indicator for NinjaTrader

GC TS TradePlan Gold Chart Review - Tuesday August 18, 2015

GC TS TradePlan Gold Chart Review - Tuesday August 18, 2015

Looks a lot like the chart from last Friday
Charts shown with the TS TradePlan Indicator for NinjaTrader

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Opportunity Is What You Make It!

Opportunity Is What You Make It!

CL TS TradePlan Oil Chart Review - Thursday Aug 5, 2015
Charts shown with the TS TradePlan Indicator for NinjaTrader

ES YM NQ 6E CL GC TS TradePlan Chart Review - Tuesday Aug 4, 2015

ES TS TradePlan E-mini S&P-500 Chart Review - Tuesday Aug 4, 2015

YM TS TradePlan E-mini Dow Chart Review - Tuesday Aug 4, 2015

NQ TS TradePlan NASDAQ 100 Chart Review - Tuesday Aug 4, 2015

6E TS TradePlan Euro Chart Review - Tuesday Aug 4, 2015

CL TS TradePlan Oil Chart Review - Tuesday Aug 4, 2015

GC TS TradePlan Gold Chart Review - Tuesday Aug 4, 2015

Charts shown with the TS TradePlan Indicator for NinjaTrader

Monday, August 3, 2015

Can You Use The Execution/Target Zones As Trade Targets?

Be sure to scroll all the way down and get the lesson in this post!

YM TS TradePlan E-mini Dow Chart Review - Monday August 3, 2015

Many will not use the Execution/Target Zones as targets. Only as places to execute. I have found that those people usually don't last long. There is a reason why it says "let trades run to their true targets" on the website. If you are only using the Execution/Target Zones for Executions you are missing 1/2 of the plan. 

Today's YM (and ES) plan called for positioning keyed to the day's LIS and targeting the Execution/Target Zones. That if we held under LIS we would likely want to test Range Long and potentially Highest Odds Long FTD. 

Well, that is exactly what happened on Monday. 

YM TS TradePlan E-mini Dow Chart Review - Monday August 3, 2015
(shown annotated and with the Contract Notes from TS Tradeplan)
Charts shown with the TS TradePlan Indicator for NinjaTrader